Miami Heat win in NBA Finals' Game 7 delivers high ratings for ABC

The ratings gap between cable and broadcast TV shows keeps shrinking. This season, many hit series on ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox have slumped to record lows. But cable shows are at or near all-time highs. A few examples:

Scott Collins

He may be the most hated man in Cleveland, but LeBron James triumphed again Thursday night, on the court and in the TV-ratings books.

The game delivered a 17.7 overnight rating for ABC, making it the second-highest-rated NBA game ever on the network. (The highest-rated was during the 2010 match-up between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics).

Complete numbers, including total-viewer figures, will be available later.

This was James' second NBA championship in a row as well as his second since leaving the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2010 in a controversial free-agency move.

Interesting statistic: ABC said that a record 115 million total minutes of NBA content were consumed on digital properties from its sister sports network ESPN on Thursday -- and that nearly half of that was smartphones and other mobile devices.